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Tipping question

ARI421

By ARI421,
in Royal Caribbean International

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ARI421

ARI421

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I have a question that hopefully can be answered nicely and not as a war about tipping please.. Two cruises ago, we met a lovely girl and her husband on a carnival cruise, that had worked for carnival for years, this was their first time as passengers on the cruise.. They had lots of nasty things to stay about tipping and we decided to start removing tips and hand them out in person based on this..

 

How does Royal carribean handle this? We have only donw it once on carnival and they were wonderful. I explained we would be giving the full amount plus some in cash. my friend thinks Royal will be nasty if i do this.. Help?

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Stephluva2711

Stephluva2711

Posted
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I have a question that hopefully can be answered nicely and not as a war about tipping please.. Two cruises ago, we met a lovely girl and her husband on a carnival cruise, that had worked for carnival for years, this was their first time as passengers on the cruise.. They had lots of nasty things to stay about tipping and we decided to start removing tips and hand them out in person based on this..

 

How does Royal carribean handle this? We have only donw it once on carnival and they were wonderful. I explained we would be giving the full amount plus some in cash. my friend thinks Royal will be nasty if i do this.. Help?

 

Why does your friend feel Royal will be nasty??

 

Anyway, I just got off allure in Nov. of last year. We never ate in the dining room, instead we ate in specialty restaurants because we had a package. So we decided to opt out of tips. All we had to do was go to guest services, they took our room number and put we were opting out, no explanations are needed, you don't have to tell them why nor how much you will be giving. I just decided to give my cabin attendant and the other people in the specialty restaurants the suggested tip, and then for my dining room staff i did give them an envelope the last night, just not the suggested since i never ate in there.

 

What you decide to do, on your vacation is your business and you shouldn't have to explain your reasoning to people. And royal was very professional about it, and didn't' give us a hard time.

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bouhunter

bouhunter

Posted
Posted
They had lots of nasty things to stay about tipping

Curious what exactly this means.

I explained we would be giving the full amount plus some in cash. my friend thinks Royal will be nasty if i do this.. Help?

 

I don't know how Royal would be "nasty" about it.......

 

 

I think people have tips removed and do their own thing often.

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mom says Excellent Advice! Rare

mom says

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OP are you choosing to do traditional MDR dining, or MTD?? It is my understanding that if you are doing MTD you must prepay your gratuities and cancelling them is not an option.

 

I'd also like to hear what kind of nasty things were said about automatic tips. So nasty that you would remove them.

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dadroy

dadroy

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I believe even with prepaid tips you can have them removed at guest services.

 

I would add that tipping for the dinner service includes ALL tips for all the shared waitstaff. For example, the people in the buffet get part of those tips. When you do not tip the dining room staff because you never ate there, you are also skipping the tips for the people who may have served you lunch in the dining room or the buffet don't get tipped either.

 

Sort of like tipping the room service people because they do not get the tip you give the steward.

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gerif

gerif

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Why does your friend feel Royal will be nasty??

 

Anyway, I just got off allure in Nov. of last year. We never ate in the dining room, instead we ate in specialty restaurants because we had a package. So we decided to opt out of tips. All we had to do was go to guest services, they took our room number and put we were opting out, no explanations are needed, you don't have to tell them why nor how much you will be giving. I just decided to give my cabin attendant and the other people in the specialty restaurants the suggested tip, and then for my dining room staff i did give them an envelope the last night, just not the suggested since i never ate in there.

 

What you decide to do, on your vacation is your business and you shouldn't have to explain your reasoning to people. And royal was very professional about it, and didn't' give us a hard time.

 

How did you deal with breakfast and lunch? Did you tip individually there as well? Those servers get a "cut" of the automatic tips so if you removed those these people didn't get anything for their work.

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PattyG12

PattyG12

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Posted (edited)

so funny that people get such different stories. I have a friend that works for Royal that says it makes his life MUCH easier when everyone does the automatic tips. Of course, the extras that come in are for him alone. The pre pay tips go into his account and his wife is able to use that at home.

Edited by PattyG12
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Dajbman22

Dajbman22

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I believe even with prepaid tips you can have them removed at guest services.

 

This has been confirmed, but the thing to note is that if you prepayed the tips, they can only refund the gratuity amount back to the same payment method used at final payment, so if you used a credit card, it would probably take at least a billing cycle to refund the charge, and if you already payed the balance down, it could cause some issues.

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talia-co

talia-co

Posted
Posted (edited)
so funny that people get such different stories. I have a friend that works for Royal that says it makes his life MUCH easier when everyone does the automatic tips. Of course, the extras that come in are for him alone. The pre pay tips go into his account and his wife is able to use that at home.

 

very good to know! We always give are stateroom attendants quite a bit more above what we have already prepaid; additional tips as well to other crew. I always hope they are able to pocket it for themselves. (and/or share with their assistants)

Edited by talia-co
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ARI421

ARI421

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Thanks for all the answers! I have traveled ncl and carnival never royal. When we were talking with friends last weekend talking about cruises out friend gave us the impression that we would have a hard time giving tips on cash. So I wanted to ask some experienced people on this cruise line.

 

 

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phoenix1181

phoenix1181

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If you hand someone cash, you can bet your bottom dollar that it goes into THEIR OWN pocket...it isn't shared or reported! Guaranteed.

 

I'd love to know how you can guarantee that............ It's my understanding if the auto charge is removed, they are required to replace their share for the pool.

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ARI421

ARI421

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I'd love to know how you can guarantee that............ It's my understanding if the auto charge is removed, they are required to replace their share for the pool.

 

 

I am ignorant on royal carribean on carnival they are not required to they may keep all cash tips

 

 

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phoenix1181

phoenix1181

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I am ignorant on royal carribean on carnival they are not required to they may keep all cash tips

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I've never cruised Carnival so have no clue how they handle it. I've been told on RCCL & NCL that when the auto charge is removed the staff is required to add their share to the pool. Logically, it makes sense.

 

If the cabin stewards & waitstaff were able to keep all the cash tips they received, I'm sure many would be recommending that passengers remove the auto charge & tip in cash. Frankly, if that was happening, I'm sure we would have heard about it here on CC.

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iheartbda

iheartbda

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I'd love to know how you can guarantee that............ It's my understanding if the auto charge is removed, they are required to replace their share for the pool.

Waste of time to ask her to explain anything since she NEVER comes back to a thread.

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ARI421

ARI421

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Waste of time to ask her to explain anything since she NEVER comes back to a thread.

 

 

Ummm excuse me? I rarely post are you talking to me? And if so what us your problem? I politely asked a question maybe you could be as polite!

 

 

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talia-co

talia-co

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Ummm excuse me? I rarely post are you talking to me? And if so what us your problem? I politely asked a question maybe you could be as polite!

 

 

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oh no, ARI421, you are totally fine! They are speaking of another person.

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ARI421

ARI421

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As I had stated before we cruised with two fellow carnival cruise workers who convinced us and several others that tips are not distributed fairly and it's better to hand them in person as she and her husband actually worked on a ship I figure her word is better than anyone's my only question was had people removed them on royal carribean and if so had they given you problems I work and have children so if I don't respond immediately I apologize!

 

 

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Stephluva2711

Stephluva2711

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How did you deal with breakfast and lunch? Did you tip individually there as well? Those servers get a "cut" of the automatic tips so if you removed those these people didn't get anything for their work.

 

Breakfast most of the time we ate in park cafe since it was so packed everywhere else. Once in Mexico we had lunch other times we sometimes went to cafe promenade since dinner reservations were so early . Once or twice it was room service in which we did tip the people that brought it. And like i said i Did tip my dining room staff at the end of the cruise, it just wasnt' the suggested amount

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